The Woman Who Would be King : Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

Discover the engrossing story of Ancient Egypt's longest-reigning female pharaoh and her audacious rise to power in a man’s world‘Hatshepsut’s story provides all the ingredients required of a modern bestseller… well-researched… hugely enjoyable.’ Mail on SundayHatshepsut, the daughter of a general who had usurped the throne of Egypt, was born into a privileged position within the royal household.Married off to her own brother, she was expected to bear sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family.But she failed to produce a male heir. Such was the twist of fate that paved the way for her own scarcely believable rule: she ascended to the throne as a ‘king’. Over a spectacular twenty-two-year reign, Hatshepsut proved herself a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays with a veil of piety and sexual reinvention.Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut had to operate the levers of a patriarchal system to emerge as Egypt’s second female pharaoh. Scholars have long speculated as to why her images were violently destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her rule.Constructing a rich narrative history using the sources that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power – and why she fell from public favour just as quickly.The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of a female pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power. ‘With rigorous scholarship and a lively sense of sisterhood, Cooney retrieves Hatshepsut in her own times and liberates her as a woman for ours.’ The Times'Engrossing and compulsively readable.' TIME Magazine